


Meet Me Back, Okay?

by UnicornsAreTheShiz



Category: Voltron - Fandom
Genre: Allura - Freeform, Angst, Coran - Freeform, Death, Gen, Injury, Introspection, Langst, Pidge - Freeform, Sadness, Shiro - Freeform, Short, Voltron, hunk - Freeform, i won't this in like one go so it probably sucks, keith - Freeform, lance - Freeform, only mentions of the last three though, sorry my dudes, vld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 11:34:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12840297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnicornsAreTheShiz/pseuds/UnicornsAreTheShiz
Summary: Lance is trapped miles underground, severely injured, and ready to introspect.Lance never thought he'd miss sunburns.Now it wasn't as if Lance got sunburned all the time; in fact, Lance barely got sunburned as a child or a teen no matter how long he stayed out.But on the days when it was way hotter than normal, towards the end of summer, and when the salt water waves had lapped against his skin until it was raw, he got sunburns that felt like tiny fires had lit along his shoulders and face.





	Meet Me Back, Okay?

Lance never thought he'd miss sunburns. 

Now it wasn't as if Lance got sunburned all the time; in fact, Lance barely got sunburned as a child or a teen no matter how long he stayed out.   
But on the days when it was way hotter than normal, towards the end of summer, and when the salt water waves had lapped against his skin until it was raw, he got sunburns that felt like tiny fires had lit along his shoulders and face. 

Still, Lance thought of the sunburns pain as small pinches compared to this; a deeply grazed shot in the shoulder, and ripped pieces of shrapnel lodged through his upper back. 

At least with sunburns his mother had an aloe plant growing in the kitchen.

Lance tried to chuckle to himself at that, but the sudden shift caused spikes of pain to shoot through his lungs. 

He decided humor might not be the best at the moment.

Turning his attention elsewhere, he continued to click the comm’s chat button. All he could hear was static, but he hoped Pidge's idea of attempting Morse code would alert the team. With the electronic beep that sounded when someone turned on their comms, Pidge had suggested that if anyone were in cases where they couldn't speak or draw attention, they should use the beeps to talk.   
In the months since she suggested it, team members had been saved many times. Leave it up to Pidge to be a genius. 

Sadly, Pidge was not there to help him, and no one had been responding to the coms in over a hour. Lance knew that since he was deep underground in a planet's mining tunnels, it would take a minute to get help. But since he had first started to request help, the time it would take to reach him had long since passed. Lance set his helmet down, and continued to lose hope.

It was quite the situation he was in.

It was definitely a pain in the back.

Lance couldn't help but laugh at that one, and yet again was reminded why he wasn't supposed to laugh. Lance started to realize he was feeling numb in his feet when he tried to settle himself. He couldn't move his toes, nor know if he was even moving them in the first place.   
Actually thinking about this made him both want to laugh, and to cry. He chose the ladder. Tears had started to well up in his eyes, and he started to try to keep himself from crying when he remembered he was a half a mile underground surrounded by rumble in some random cave. 

Well, cave might be exaggerating. It was more like a 6 by 6 space with a slanted ceiling and rocks surrounding him. 

Lance was lucky that there were small cracks between to rocks to allow the air in, though. At least he was bleeding to his death instead of suffocating. Count your blessings, as his mother would say.   
Thinking of his mother just made him feel like a weight had added to his body ever since he'd been shot into space, but now it started to feel better to think about his mom. His mother was a wise person, known to both teaching her kids lessons, as well as saying ‘I told you so’ to them. 

Thoughts of his mom made him want to cry again. 

Great. 

Reassuring himself that he was alone, he finally let a few tears slide down his cheeks. When he tried to wipe some tears away, he realized the tips of his fingers had gone numb. He dropped his hand and stared blankly at the rocks in front of him. What was he doing again? Lance continued to stare at the wall as he pondered. It felt like his brain wasn't catching up.

Oh well, he'd get to it later. For now, he just felt like grabbing his helmet while the majority of his hands still worked. After numbly fumbling for it, Lance picked up the helmet and held it in his lap. He could no longer try Morse code, so he decided to just turn on the comms. 

A small bit of hope rose as he tried to click the button. Maybe it'd work! Maybe Lance could be swiftly rescued before being popped into a healing pod and continuing life with his friends! Maybe he'd live to return home to his family! Lance pushed the button and waited. Expecting the voices of his friends, instead Lance got static. 

The small smile that had risen was now replaced with an agonizing look across his face. Lance felt more tears stream down his face as he struggled to breathe.   
Lance tried to sniffle, assuming the labored breathes were from the crying, but nothing happened.  
Lance stopped crying, now confused as to why his breathing was being weird. He tried to clear his throat, just sending pain through his back. Then it dawned on him; his lungs were filling up blood. Lance scoffed.

A new contender joins the race, and it turns out to be internal bleeding! It's even beating bleeding out to death, which Lance did not bet on. Lance wanted to laugh at his own sarcasm, but remembered that he shouldn't laugh. 

He hesitated for a minute; why wasn't he supposed to laugh, again?

He couldn't really remember, as fuzziness had grown to fill up his recent memories. Lance tried to imitate laughing, to see why he wasn't supposed to, and the pain that flared up in his lungs reminded him, but it definitely didn't hurt as much as it once did. Lance decided not to dwell on it, and instead tried to keep his mind occupied. 

His family was becoming more and more of a pleasant subject to think about. His head was flooded with summers spent surfing and eating popsicles. He remembered saving all his summer homework to do on the last day of vacation.   
He remembered riding bikes with his friends right after getting his first ever new bike. All his previous ones were older siblings’ bikes, and he had begged his parents for his own bike for two years. They'd finally gave in and got him one for his birthday. His younger cousin had thought he was stupid for wasting his birthday present on a bike, but Lance's older sister was convinced it would mean Lance would grow up responsible. 

Gosh, Lance missed his family. 

Changing the subject before he could feel too bad, Lance debated what to think of. Abruptly, he felt a painful cough coming on, and Lance wheezed as he struggled to breathe. His coughs bounced off the cave’s walls, and the sound of wetness in them left him uneasy. Lance brought his un-injured arm to his mouth, and coughed into the elbow. After the coughs started to die down, Lance pulled his arm away.  
Immediately Lance noticed the dark red saliva that trailed. When he looked down at his arm, he realized just how much blood he had coughed up. Lance sluggishly ran his tongue across his mouth and he finally noticed the heavy metallic taste. Lance dropped his arm and looked up. 

He was going to have to come to terms with this; he was probably going to die. 

Thinking about dying was scary. Lance didn't want to die, though in the time since he'd been shot into space, he'd started to notice how many times he could've died. If you asked Lance how he wanted to die, he'd respond with a something simple; “I want to be surrounded by all of family and friends”. Lance didn't care how he died, as long as he was with the ones he cared about. To Lance, seeing your family and friends was seeing all the people that had an impact on your life and vice versa.

Lance knew that wouldn't happen at this rate, but he could hope. 

So Lance decided to think about religion. He wasn't very religious himself, but his family was a little. His family went to church every Sunday until he was around 10, when they started going only every once in a while.   
As a kid, Lance believed in God, but as he grew up, he developed an indifference to it. Lance didn't really know if there was a god, and it didn't matter that much to him. But now that he was faced with a very real chance that he was dying, Lance decided to think about it. 

Lance hadn't experienced any miracles himself, though he saw in the news that they happened, but Lance didn't have any definitive proof that God was real.   
Even so, Lance decided to quickly pray; just because. Mumbling the ingrained words under his breath, Lance bowed his head and prayed. 

 

 

After he was done, Lance decided that even if God did not exist, he at least felt connected to his family more. 

Sadly, his comfort didn't last long.  
Lance realized with a start that he couldn't feel his legs at all, and the pain that once radiated from his shot wound in his shoulder and the shrapnel in his back was numbing. Lance would suddenly cough up blood, but he didn't feel much pain besides the dull aches from his lungs. 

Lance struggled, but he was eventually lying flat on the ground instead of upright as he had been. Lance's shoes brushed slightly against the wall in the small cave. Lance turned to his helmet, his vision clouding with black at the edges. Lance slowly felt an odd calm towards the thought of his death.

It seemed peaceful.

Lance didn't notice that he was closing his eyes until he opened them to the sounds of voices. Confused, Lance tried to listen. Maybe he was in heaven. 

He tried calling out with his grated voice, “Abuelita?” 

He heard confused voices, and he slowly started to be able to make out what they were saying.

"What? Lance can you speak up? We just wanted to check how you were holding up. Hunk and Keith finished so we're just waiting on you and Shiro. The interference has been off the wall so we're going to check with Shiro in a little. You get the samples yet?”

Lance felt like the voice was familiar. He tried to place it when he heard another.

“Hey Pidge, I've got a bad feeling about this. Maybe his helmet is broken or he's too far underground.”

Immediately after, another voice was heard through the blue helmet.

“Yeah I think so too, Hunk. Come in Lance, are you okay?” 

Lance realized they were asking him a question, but he was still trying to place the voices. And what about the samples; was Lance supposed to grab samples? Black started evading his vision, and his hearing was sounding like the ocean was in his ears. 

When it clicked in his brain, Lance remembered who they were. Pidge, Hunk, and Keith. Lance knew he didn't have much time left; he had to talk to them. Maybe he couldn't say all he wanted to right now, but he might be able to in another life.

With a wheeze, Lance tilted his head towards the helmet. He couldn't hear his own voice now, but he hope they'd be able to. He sadly wouldn't be able to speak to Shiro, Allura, Coran, or his family and friends back home, but he felt like this was enough. 

 

“Guys… you have…you have to meet me back…” 

 

Lance struggled with the last words.

“Lance are you talking about the rendezvous point? You don't sound very good are you okay? Lance!” 

“Lance, buddy are you okay?! Lance please answer me!” 

“Lance, please answer us. Are you hurt?"

Fuzzy voices came through. He couldn't hear them, so he'd just continue on. 

 

“Meet me back…. back home… tell them I love the-…..”

 

Lance couldn't talk anymore. The blood dropped down from his mouth to his chin. He couldn't see. 

The roaring in his ears enveloped him. It was like he was underwater.

 

Maybe he was back home in the ocean. 

 

Lance was falling, to where he didn't know. 

 

All there was, was calm. 

 

He was there,

 

 

and then he wasn't.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my gosh, my dudes; figuring out fonts is hard! I'm not good at it yet, but I tried. Also; I felt like projecting so here's some good ole angst. Sorry dudes.  
>  But I do hope your day has been good! Life can get tiring sometimes, but I like to think that just sitting down and thinking can be relaxing. Asking questions like "Are cheetos offended by being compared to Donald Trump?" and "Do ducks have an opinion on cats" is pretty fun. 
> 
> Idk man I'm trying to be positive. 
> 
> Lol haha kill me my brolicious buddies.


End file.
